HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E9 - Chapter Forty Eight

Thoughts: Ok so this episode improves with a predictable but still fun plot twist keeping the machinations going. But more importantly we see an interesting psycho-emotional dynamic playing out between Claire Underwood and Tom Yates - and it's the emotional side that was so good in season 3. I'm back on board after a very weak episode 8. 

Running time: 45 minutes. Written by Frank Pugliese.  Directed by Robin Wright.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E8 - Chapter Forty-Six

Thoughts: This is the first episode I've been genuinely bored of. Where's the scabrous dark Francis Underwood of season 3, swearing in a Church, and the nuanced and even darker emotional breakdown between husband and wife. Instead we now have the scooby gang solving the crisis of the week as if they're in an episode of Scandal.  Literally the only interesting thing that happened - narratively or stylistically - was when the actor playing Aidan Macallan did the most gonzo TV dance scene since Ricky Gervais in The Office!

Running time: 42 minutes.  Written by John Makiewisz. Directed by Alex Graves.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E7 - Chapter Forty Six

Thoughts: I am really upset that so much hard emotional and difficult and brilliant narrative work in season 3 that focussed on the breakdown of the Underwood marriage seems to have been undone by a deus ex machina plot-line so that we are now basically back to contra mundum Underwoods. This is far more dull and basically series 1 stuff.  I am also incredulous that Democratic nominee Heather Dunbar would judge that she couldn't come back from the mistakes made in the previous week and it feels rather quick and shoddy and done to allow room for us to focus on President Frank Underwood's GOP opponent, Governor Conroy. Clumsy and dull.

Running time: 51 minutes. Written by Bill Kennedy. Directed by Tom Shankland.

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E6 - Chapter Forty Five

Thoughts: A strange episode and I'm not sure I like where the show is heading with Claire's story arc. Where are the feisty woman she was surrounding herself with? Where's Elizabeth and Leann? Has all of the angst of the previous five episodes been for nothing? Has the major plot-line with Frank reset everything?  I also feel the dream sequences are poorly done and very simplistic and heavy-handed in what they tell us about Frank's psyche. Compare them with the masterful, surreal and darkly comic dreams that Tony Soprano had when in a coma. Disappointing all round.

Running time: 47 minutes.  Written by Laura Easland. Directed by Tom Shankland.

Detailed and spoiler filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E5 - Chapter Forty Four

Thoughts: A solid if unspectacular episode. I like the idea that we're bringing back some of the journalists that initially covered Frank's malfeasance, such as Kate Baldwin, and that his good luck of evading justice will perhaps finally come to an end and Lucas Goodwin's sacrifice will actually mean something. I also  really like the increasing glimpses we're getting of Doug Stamper's true psychotic nature.  That said, I still don't find the Jackie Sharp/Remy storyline particularly interesting and I wonder how realistic it is that the Acting President could sit there IM chatting with someone during a secret diplomatic phonecall.

Running time: 47 minutes. Written by Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Tom Shankland.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E4 - Chapter Forty Three

Thoughts: A short episode but an explosive one that was literally exhausting to watch. I loved the desperation on Lucas' face and the deadening inevitability of the actions taken.  In a sense, it's perhaps surprising that the writers didn't use this plot point before but it's really fantastic to see it thrown in at such a delicate juncture. Because by the end of the episode, Claire basically has what she wants - no? There's also some brilliant comic deadpan dialogue between Claire and Luann: "What's that?" "My mother killing a lizard." And then the final coup de grace: "Watch your step. There's blood on the floor." All in all, I couldn't be happier with the way in which this season is unfolding. My only nitpick is the cloying obviousness of the cutesy moment between Frank and Meechum.

Running time: 41 minutes. Written by John Mankiewicz. Directed by Robin Wright.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E2 - Chapter Forty One

Thoughts:  An odd episode with a lot going on and maybe that's understandable for the second episode in the series.  It just didn't feel like it coalesced to me and the short running time suggests that perhaps it suffered from mis-editing? At any rate the big story here is how far Frank will go to stop Claire's candidacy and the final political coup de grace was joyous to watch. Elsewhere I find it hard to care about Remy Danton's retirement and who's stalking him.  But I do like the nuance of Claire's relationship with her mother and the idea that in order to get our from under Frank she will have to become more dependent on her mother.  Burstyn's brilliantly hysterical "I am THE MOTHER!" outburst takes this to the verge of melodrama but let's see how it's handled from now on....

Running time: 40 minutes.  Written by Melissa James Gibbons. Directed by Tucker Gates.

Detailed and clearly spoiler filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E1 - Chapter Forty

Thoughts:  The new season of House of Cards starts off just a few weeks behind where we are right now in the US political season - the primaries in Iowa are over with Frank scraping a win - and New Hampshire is happening through this episode.  But for all that, this season feels a bit like a relic given its position that establishment parties cut deals and run races.   We find Frank behind Dunbar in the polls but forced to head to Texas to stalk his wife.  At the end of last season, Claire left Frank but they clearly aren't divorced. Oh no - for this political couple that would waste far too much political capital. Instead she is trying to kick off her White House run by standing for Congress in Texas, replacing an established black female candidate. And so the remainder of the episode sees the Underwoods come to some kind of Cold War agreement not to destroy each other's political ambitions.  

I love the amount of strong female characters that have been introduced in this episode. From Neve Campbell's campaign manager Leann Harvey, to Cicely Tyson's strong Congresswoman Doris Jones, to Claire's formidable mother Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn).  I really hope we get to explore the issue of race in politics but also the interaction of establishment vs non-establishment candidates too.   Finally, I like the idea that the series started with the Lucas Goodwin story-line, which in a sense is just a variation on the Zoe Barnes storyline.  It's good that this basic Achilles heel to Frank's presidency continues to bubble under the surface, waiting to bring him down.

Running time: 48 minutes. Written by Beau Willimon.  Directed by Tucker Gates

Detailed plot summary: 

THE CALLING

THE CALLING is a deeply derivative second-rate thriller directed by Jason Stone and based on the novel by Inger Ash Wolfe.  Susan Sarandon is wasted as small-town detective Hazel, on the trail of a serial killer who takes pictures of his victims' mouths enunciating words. She's helped by recently transferred deputy Ben (Topher Grace), who in a moment of gonzo wackiness uses his mom's donated airmiles to go chasing leads on his own and getting into trouble.  Naturally it all turns out to be linked to religious nutters, with Donald Sutherland playing a wise old Catholic priest who turns the cops onto the fact that the killer is harvesting victims to power a resurrection.   

The problem with the film is not the plot or the acting which are just fine as police procedural's go. It's the fact that everything echoes other, better, more unique works.  So when we see Sarandon is one of those hurry cop hats riding through the country to investigate a murder it immediately recalls FARGO.  And the scene of Ben going to investigate a spooky house on his own resembles SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.  Moreover, while the atmosphere is suitably sombre and some of the emotional content genuinely moving, the film lacks pace.  For a thriller, and one chock-full of outlandish material no less, it's not that thrilling.  

THE CALLING has a running time of 108 minutes and is rated R.  The film opened earlier this year in the US and Canada and is currently on release in the UK and Ireland. 

London Film Festival Day 10 - W.

W. is a frustrating movie. It features a strong central performance from Josh Brolin (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) as George W. Bush, but this biopic plays like an afternoon TV drama. Writer Stanley Weiser and director Oliver Stone have given us a conventional biopic wherein a bunch of stuff happens to W. He goes to Yale, he drinks a lot, he fails at a bunch of jobs, he gets born again, and somehow, just to prove he can, he gets elected, he takes us into Iraq....Nowhere do the film-makers show the kind of intelligence in shaping the material that Paolo Sorrentino lent to his Giuilio Andreotti biopic, IL DIVO. There are no big ideas. Okay - there's one big idea. That W. was always trying to prove his worth to his "poppy" H.W. But frankly, this is treated in such a ham-fisted, cursory manner it hardly passes for an over-riding theme. And the dream-sequence in a baseball stadium is so crude and so ill-pursued that it wouldn't look out of place in a rookie feature. Oliver Stone seems to be regressing from a work of labyrinthine brilliance and daring - JFK - to this superficial, paint-by-numbers narrative. Directorial clumsiness aside, biographers of W. have a problem, and it's not a problem that Oliver Stone resolves. You have to make a choice on how you view W. If you assume that he really is as dumb as he looks - that he can barely string a sentence together and that he's been manipulated by the neo-cons - then you reduce him to a buffoon. And if you reduce him to a buffoon, but you're dealing with serious issues like Iraq, then what the audience wants is actually a film about Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and how those guys got what they wanted. In other words, you want a movie in which W. is not the lead character. On the other hand, if you argue that W. was actually more intelligent and active than that - that it takes more than a famous name to become POTUS - then you have to work hard to argue your case and to make W. a nuanced and interesting character worthy of a biopic. Oliver Stone simply doesn't do this. He doesn't try to get underneath the skin of W. in the way that he got underneath the skin of Nixon. Stone goes for the easy laughs in mocking W. As a result, he undermines his own case for making the film. Accordingly, we get a sporadically entertaining but largely dull film that strings together famous phrases, a series of vignettes and some piss-poor caricatures of cabinet members. This film is not worthy of Oliver Stone. And it's certainly not worthy of an American president that took his country into a three-front war; tore down constitutional protections; and was at the helm at the start of an economic clusterfuck. 

W. played London 2008. It was released earlier this month in the US and opens next weekend in Belgium and France. W opens in the UK on November 7th, in Turkey on November 14th, in Sweden on December 5th, in Finland on January 2nd and in the Netherlands on January 8th.

THE FOUNTAIN - intriguing/frustrating

In short, Darren Aronofsky disappearing down a dead end is still more interesting than most Hollywood hacks getting it right.

Aronofsky is a challenging director – both in terms of content and visual style. And if I found his debut feature, PI, more intriguing than perfect, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is certainly one of my pantheon movies. Its bleak depiction of drug abuse and crass commerce was told in an innovative style and with uncompromising honesty. Not to mention the fact that Aronofsky managed to coax career-redefining performances from Ellen Burstyn and Jennifer Connelly. Where these movies succeeded was in scraping underneath the surface of a relatively closed under-ground world. Investigating the workings of mania and paranoia and addiction on a small group of individuals living in contemporary society – albeit a strand of society that most of us never interact with.

With THE FOUNTAIN, Aronofsky moves well beyond his (dis)comfort zone into the territory of 2001. He eschews contemporary settings to produce a more abstract, symbolic and richly stylised movie. At its heart is a man called Tom (Hugh Jackman) who is desperately in love with his fatally ill wife, an authoress called Izzy (Rachel Weisz). The crux of the story is Tom’s initial refusal to accept Izzy’s impending death. In the contemporary story-line, Tom chooses to spend time researching a cure rather than spending what time remains with Izzy. This choice will rack him with guilt in the futuristic story-line, which sees Tom living alone with his regrets in a sci-fi world of loneliness (another Requiem for a Dream of Eternal Love?) The film is also inter-cut with a further storyline which sees Izzy’s novel re-enacted. Tom is now cast as a Spanish conquistador on a mission from Izzy’s Queen of Spain to find a plant that can give eternal life.

The thematic content of the movie is thus profound, but also surprisingly simple, especially given the complexity of Aronofsky’s narrative structure and visual and audio stylings. The movie boasts an evocative sound-track from the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai and the production design features fairy-tale symbols and beautifully rendered old-fashioned visual effects. The problem is that at least half of it feels redundant. I am also unconvinced by the heavy-handed symbolism of the presumably deliberately under-lit opening scenes of the Conquistador? Of many examples, Christopher Nolan proved in BATMAN BEGINS that it is possible to create a dark, brooding atmosphere while actually allowing the audience to see what is going on.

The overall effect is that while powerful, the simple central question posed by the film drowns under the weight of the deliberately obscure production design, cinematography and editing. The over-complicated structure and design and abstract script also prohibit Jackman and Weisz from giving memorable performances - though they do their best with portentious dialogue. All this combines to make THE FOUNTAIN simultaneously one of the most intriguing and frustrating films I have seen in a long time.

THE FOUNTAIN played Venice and Toronto 2006. It opened in the US, Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan and France in winter 2006. It opened in Poland, South Africa, Germany and Estonia earlier this month and opens in Australia, Italy and the UK this weekend. THE FOUNTAIN opens in South Korea on Feb 8th and in Israel and Singapore on Feb 22nd. It opens in New Zealand on March 1st and in Hong Kong, the Netherland and Belgium on March 8th. It opens in Norway on March 16th, Spain on March 30th, Sweden and and Finland on April 13th and in Japan on July 7th.

THE WICKER MAN (2006) - like sending a three-toed sloth out to sieze turf from a wolverine

Significant plot spoilers follow......

At times of trouble I turn to the good Doctor. Hunter S. Thompson, that is. I quote from FEAR & LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL - his record of the 1972 Presidential election: "The mood of the nation in 1972 was so overwhelmingly vengeful, greedy, bigoted and blindly reactionary that no presidential candidate who even faintly reminded Typical Voters of the fear and anxiety they'd felt during the constant sexual upheavals of the 1960s had any chance at all of beating Nixon." In that weird time - when the giant post-hallucinatory downer hit the free love generation - we got a movie for the times: THE WICKER MAN. Now, thirty-three years later, when one half of America thinks abortion should be outlawed and the other half is cheerfully celebrating gay marriages, THE WICKER MAN once more appears on our screens. But how the mighty are fallen.

The 1973 version of THE WICKER MAN is a bizarre British (oc)cult thriller, directed by Robin Hardy using a quality screenplay by Anthony Shaffer. Shaffer wanted to write a horror story without blood and he did that by messing with our heads rather than our spleens and by using the structure of a whodunnit. In the Hardy/Shaffer film, a virginal, fervently Christian copper called Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) is mysteriously summoned to an island off the Scottish coast. He is appalled by the licentious locals. At first, we like the locals more than Howie. After all, they're just having a good time, right? But soon the atmosphere turns nasty. The cute "rosemary and thyme" folksy songs cover up a more profound and sinister pagan cult, involving child abuse and human sacrifice. It's all presided over by Christopher Lee, who plays Lord Summerisle. The mood is sombre, sinister and slow-burning, and by the end we are presented with a provocative confrontation between dogmatic Christianty and pagan zealoutry. I have always read the ending as the cinematic equivalent of T.S.Eliot's THE HOLLOW MAN, but its greatness lies in its ambiguity. It could also be seen as powerful warning against moral extremism in all its forms.

THE WICKER MAN (1973) is truly a fascinating film, which is not to say that it's flawless. The folksy dancing and singing can be camp, and the sequence where the beautiful inn-keeper's daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland with an appalling dubbed Scottish accent and a body double) dances and rubs up against a bedroom wall, trying to seduce Howie is irredeemably kitsch. Still, the original movie is a really great film.

I had pretty high hopes for THE WICKER MAN (2006) too. It is written and adapted by Neil LaBute, who famously brought us IN THE COMPANY OF MEN - a movie so brutal it is rarely available on DVD. If anyone would be able to bring us a WICKER MAN for our times, surely it was LaBute? The thing is, this new movie is a 100% studio production. Think of it as a Nic Cage vehicle and nothing more.

To be sure, LaBute has kept the mechanical workings of the original plot. There is still a copper, played by Nic Cage, who is called to a mysterious island to find a little lost girl. But he is no religious virgin - rather a nice, if introverted, guy. Indeed, the 2006 copper, rather than being aggressively seduced by Willow, was actually engaged to her, and comes at her request. And what a sappy, pathetic Willow Woodward (geddit?!) we are given - all hippy hair and pouty lips and about as sexless as a crash test dummy. Nic Cage's character doesn't seem morally outraged by the goings-on the island. He is not asked to question his beliefs or hold onto them against all odds. He ends the movie the same man as when he started - a decent, if introverted guy, who gets straightforwardly freaked out that some nutters might be about to torch a little girl just to ensure their organic honey harvest works out. The other bit of studio cyncism involves supplanting the Christopher Lee/Lord Summerisle character with a woman: horror icon Ellen Burstyn playing Sister Summerisle. I suppose that in a post-DA VINCI CODE world, everything has to be about the repression of the feminine.

Without the philosophical provocation and the slighly mad kistch element, THE WICKER MAN remake becomes a rather dull whodunnit. Except we know the ending. Which makes this movie nothing more than an embarrasing coda in the mythic history of the original movie.

THE WICKER MAN (2006) was released today in the Netherlands and in the UK. It opens in the US tomorrow and plays Venice on the 4th September 2006. It opens in the Philippines, Israel, Italy and the Ivory Coast on the 9th, and in Greece and Iceland on the 22nd. THE WICKER MAN opens in Belgium, Brazil and Spain in October and in Germany and Denmark in November.